First-Year Seminar (101-6-23)
Topic
From West Side Story to Down These Mean Streets: I
Instructors
Jessica Marie Ramirez
Meeting Info
University Hall 118: Tues, Thurs 12:30PM - 1:50PM
Overview of class
How does a minority group fight for recognition in New York City? This course addresses questions of visibility within the Puerto Rican enclave of New York. We will have the opportunity to discuss movie clips from West Side Story to oral performances of poetry. In Luis Rafael Sánchez's poem "La guagua aérea," the following exchange depicts the relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico: "Which town in Puerto Rico do you come from? With striking ordinariness…she replied - De Nueva York." We can compare these lines to the famous West Side Story song that exclaims, "Nobody knows in America/Puerto Rico's in America!" Whether asserting that New York is located in Puerto Rico, or that Puerto Rico is in fact in "America," one thing is certain: the boundary between the United States and Puerto Rico is extremely blurry, malleable and, one may even argue, subjective. Through poetry, memoirs, and short stories, Nuyorican/Puerto Rican literature represents an in-betweenness via references to, and often nostalgia for, the Island. This course will explore the violence and rehabilitation of Down These Mean Streets, the crying out of Nuyorican poetry and the impact of the memoir as a genre. We will consider how interracial dynamics and border theory influence Latinx literature, including Nuyorican slam poetry, and we will analyze how the past affects contemporary literature, which speaks out against stereotypes of poverty, welfare, and social status.
Evaluation Method
1. Theoretical Review (3-4 pages) (15%)
• Choose one text on literary theory (either The Social Imperative or In Visible Movement)
• How might we read Down These Mean Streets within the context of the secondary readings that we've discussed thus far?
• In other words, based on the secondary reading (The Social Imperative / In Visible Movement), how can we apply the ideas of Paula M.L. Moya or Urayoán Noel to Down These Mean Streets?
• Summarize/quote main argument.
2. Literary Analysis (4-5 pages) (20%)
• Create an argument about how Nuoyrican poetry contributes meaning through similar/distinct themes, which could include depictions of social class, race/ethnicity, gender, etc.
o Choose 2 main concepts we've discussed in class to support your argument (i.e. racialization, border literature, liminality, mestizaje, Nuyorican, racial literacy)
• Include 2 secondary texts to support your thesis (your main argument)—these could include the works of Paula M. L. Moya and Urayoán Noel, in relation to poetry you've chosen and your main argument; some formal techniques may include syntax, metaphor, imagery, personification, etc.
• Finally, how do 2-3 rhetorical techniques support your argument alongside the secondary text that you've selected?
3. Research Paper (6-8 pages) (25%)
Choose from the following 2 arguments and support it with 3 outside sources that you will research:
1. Through understanding the umbrella of border literature, via Nuyorican poetry, which includes liminality and mestizaje, one can analyze how in-betweenness is a necessary component of those of mixed race and the poems they write/perform. Furthermore, this in-between stage represents Nuyorican identity in relation to the terms, "borderland," "liminality" and "mestizaje." The following poems were selected based on the writers' experiences as Nuyoricans who portray gritty, beautiful, and powerful poems. Individually, each text conveys how liminality and mestizaje operate under the main concept of border literature, a collective term that frames each poem.
2. "WE WANTED MORE" (Torres 1). We the Animals, by Justin Torres, emerges with a
capitalized communal craving for more, which permeates both the novel and the film. Director
Jeremiah Zagar's 2018 film adaptation illustrates how a pre-teen named Jonah yearns for "more"
via his desire for transcendence, through sexual liberation specifically. Animal motifs, Spanish,
and musicality commingle throughout this work, in order to convey how desire and transposition
function from the unique perspective of a queer, ethnoracially mixed child. Through comparisons
between We the Animals, the novel and the film version, this study provides an unconventional reading of
protagonists who resist their queer interracialized family dynamics. Along with repeated references to racial mixture, these comparisons reveal a complex understanding of Latinx identity that approximates a queer reading of racialized sexuality.
Class Materials (Required)
Moya, Paula M. L. The Social Imperative: Race, Close Reading, and Contemporary Literary Criticism. Stanford University Press, 2016.
Noel, Urayoán. In Visible Movement: Nuyorican Poetry. Univ. of Iowa Press, 2014
Thomas, Piri. Down These Mean Streets. New York: Vintage, 1997.
Torres, Justin. We the Animals. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011.
Class Notes
My name is Jessica Ramirez, and in September, I will be in my sixth year of the English PhD program. My work focuses on Latinx literature (literature written by Latinos, Latinas, and non-binary persons). I am currently writing my dissertation on Puerto Rican literature, and I have a passion for bringing underrepresented minority authors into our class discussions.
Class Attributes
WCAS First-Year Seminar
Enrollment Requirements
Enrollment Requirements: Reserved for First Year & Sophomore only